


palm springs

by thefudge



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Cheating, F/M, Falling for the Bride, Palm Springs AU, Time Loop, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28228872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: It's not enough that he gets stuck in a time loop at a wedding reception. He has to fall in love with the bride too. Palm Springs AU.
Relationships: Jughead Jones/Veronica Lodge
Comments: 33
Kudos: 116





	palm springs

**Author's Note:**

> ask and ye shall receive! (to those 2 people who asked lol)  
> this turned out really emotional for me. i hope you enjoy it!

The great thing about time loops is that he can stay relatively fit while scarfing on hors d’oeuvres until he passes out.

The shitty thing about time loops is that, once he gets past the “all you can eat buffet” phase, he moves straight to the “all you can drink at the bar” phase and that one is far less pleasant. Somehow, his body keeps track of all the alcohol. Even when the day starts all over, he feels like shit.

He lies belly down on the pool float, nose pressed into the foamy plastic. He swallows the acidic pre-vomit in his throat as the Californian sun mercilessly burns his back. He thinks about death. He’s always thought a lot about death, but always in a pseudo-artistic, abstract way. Now, he prays for physical, tangible, blood-and-guts death. 

There’s a flash of white to his left. Or his right. Or whoever-the-fuck-cares.

Someone is trying to talk to him. A girl?

The brunette has very dark, intense eyes and dark, penciled eyebrows too. They go together very well. It’s like whoever made her _really_ wanted to get that part of her face right. The rest isn’t half bad either.

She’s wearing a frilly robe and silver clips in her hair.

Why does she look familiar?

“Are you okay?” she repeats, standing by the side of the pool, leaning over to look at him.

He lifts his head an inch.

“Do I look okay?” he mumbles. There’s dry saliva on his chin.

“Not really,” she says, dark eyes flashing with disapproval. “You could use an aspirin and some orange juice. They’re still serving breakfast in the kitchen.”

He smiles a loopy smile. “Food. Food sounds good. But I’ve had that same breakfast for months now. I don’t think I can take it anymore.”

She frowns, the shadow of a sardonic smile on her lips. Or maybe that’s just her lips, always a little wry. 

“I’ve never heard of anyone being tired of breakfast before.”

“Well, there’s a first time for everything…” he trails off, trying to roll over, the plastic squeaking under his clumsy squirming. “Except for me. I don’t get any firsts anymore.”

“You must be fun at parties,” she says, deadpan.

He chortles. He can’t remember the last time he laughed at something that wasn’t depressing, existential terror.

“Touché. Okay, here’s a first. You’re the first person to ask me how I am since this whole thing started.”

The pretty girl with intense dark eyes watches his pitiable struggle with the float. She cocks her head. “Aren’t you being a little dramatic? It’s only a wedding. And you’re not the one getting married.”

He tries to suppress a burp. “I guess you have a point. Only thing that would make this worse is having to tie the knot with someone forever and ever. Eternal connubial bliss, except for the bliss part.”

“Who _are_ you, exactly?”

“Betty Cooper’s plus one,” he says, dropping into the water like a lodestone.

When he resurfaces, her face is lost in thought.

“You know Betty, don’t you?”

She nods. “Yeah, I just haven’t seen her in a while. I should catch up with her. We – we used to be close.”

He shrugs. “Yeah, she’s close with a lot of people. _Real_ close, if you know what I mean.”

The girl with dark eyes doesn’t approve, again. “You sound like an exemplary boyfriend.”

He squints at her. “Do people still use the word _exemplary_?”

“Do people still use the word _connubial_?” she throws back at him.

And it’s like she’s cut through the weird fog of timelessness. This moment feels present, unrepeatable. He wants to keep talking to her, in the now.

But it doesn’t last. Someone calls her from inside the house.

“Veronica! Hair and make-up! We’ve only got three hours!”

She rolls those dark eyes to the heavens. “Gotta go. Don’t drown, okay? You don’t look like you can handle the pool.”

She waves at him.

Jughead lifts his hand. He watches her disappear inside the house. Well, there goes the present.

He sinks into the pool. He reaches the bottom and sits down.

So, her name is Veronica.

Oh yeah, and she’s the bride.

It makes a bit more sense now.

It’s not that he hadn’t noticed her before, but everything becomes a blur when you watch the same ceremony two hundred and fifty times.

Prettiness tends to homogenize; the flower arrangements, the yucca trees, the scenic vista, the bridesmaids.

Her eyes, though. Her eyes do not homogenize.

For the first time in literally forever, he pays attention to the wedding vows. Everything around her is a hazy shade of golden summer, but that intense, shapely darkness of hers never diminishes. She’s sporting a rose crown, pink and white. When the sun dapples the flowers, he notices the stems have not been pared down. The thorns are still there, tiny and sharp, and probably digging into her scalp. How weird. Did she ask for that? It’s as if Morticia Addams were being forced to take part in a luau. He smiles.

Then his smile fades when he sees the groom.

It hadn’t really registered before – or it _had_ and he made himself forget with copious amounts of alcohol – that she was marrying Archie Andrews.

The guy Betty was vigorously making out with in the bathroom. The guy who had his hands up her dress. Practically tangled in her panties. That guy.

After the first few painful loops where his heart genuinely broke, Jughead acquired some much needed perspective and realized that a) Betty had never stopped carrying a torch for her high school sweetheart, and b) they were both kind of bored with their seven-year relationship. It had become not-so-pleasant routine. It was time for a change, but Jughead was too chicken shit to do anything about it. Good on Betty for taking the initiative. Eventually, he found the whole thing pretty hilarious, especially the part where Archie left the bathroom with a promise to talk to Betty later and then joined his bride at the newlyweds’ table and kissed her like nothing ever happened and put his arm around her, like she was the apple of his eye.

Pretty funny stuff.

Except now, it’s not so funny anymore. Now the bride has a name and a face and a pair of shrewd dark eyes and she’s also kind of witty, in that bluntly sarcastic way he likes. He never noticed before how much she stands out at her own wedding, not because she’s the prettiest one there – though, that would be a fair assessment – but because she’s so distinct from these people, from the décor, from the general atmosphere. She’s a stranger, despite belonging. Maybe he’s just gone loop-crazy, but he almost feels a kinship. As if maybe they aren’t _so_ different, the two of them.

It’s probably the loop, making him spin tales.

But whatever it is, whatever kind of _simpatico_ he’s created out of thin air, it’s making him feel like shit. Because it didn’t matter who Archie married before. But it does now.

Veronica is marrying someone who doesn’t respect her enough to not kiss another woman during their wedding.

And that sucks.

Correction. It fucking blows.

This is what he’s viciously contemplating as he watches the bride walk down the aisle.

Used to be, he could kick back and enjoy the never-ending sequence of events and not give a single fuck. But now he feels guilty, as if _he_ were the one cheating. As if he had some kind of responsibility here. To do what? Stop the wedding? But then what? This is still a loop. Nothing would ever change. Maybe out there, in the real world, she finds out the truth. Or maybe she doesn’t, maybe Archie turns a new leaf, maybe that was a goodbye kiss-and-fingering between him and Betty, maybe the marriage goes on wonderfully.

Maybe.

Unlikely.

Jughead stares at the bride from across the dance floor. And stares. And stares.

Sometimes, when no one seems to notice, her eyes glaze over, even as she’s laughing at something Archie whispered in her ear.

What is she thinking about?

This time, he pays attention when the toasts are made. He especially pays attention when Archie gets up to speak. He toasts to his bride, the amazing Veronica Lodge who “makes me a better man, each and every day”.

Jughead snorts.

The audience, including Archie, turns to look at him.

Okay, maybe that was a loud snort.

Jughead sinks back into his chair.

“Ronnie, I think it’s safe to say, you’re the only girl for me,” Archie continues, holding the champagne flute aloft. “And I hope I’m the only one for you too, even though you could probably do a lot better than me.”

He can’t help it. He snorts again and mutters under his breath, loud enough for them to hear, “I’ll say.”

“I’m sorry, man, do you have a problem?” Archie asks, staring right at him.

Jughead points a finger at his chest. “Who, me?”

“Yeah, you.”

“Nope, no problem at all.”

“Then maybe you could keep your comments to yourself, or better yet leave.”

_Oh, fuck you, ginger boy._

“You know what? I guess I do have a problem.” He scrapes the back of his chair and walks up to their table.

Veronica stares at him nonplussed. Her eyes especially dwell on his _Dead Kennedys_ T-shirt and nylon shorts. He knows he looks like a coked-up hobo.

“I have a problem with the fact that you’re telling her a bunch of lies. At least, if you’re going to cheat don’t talk about the _exclusivity_ of your relationship.”

Archie blanches, right down to the roots of his red hair.

“Excuse me?”

“Unless sticking your tongue down Betty’s throat is suddenly okay with your wife.”

Veronica darts her eyes between them. “What – what is he talking about?”

“I have no idea. He’s probably drunk and making shit up,” Archie says, signaling to one of the bouncers. “Why don’t you go cool off somewhere?”

Jughead laughs. Okay yeah, he’s drunk, but that doesn’t make his statements any less accurate. “Come on, we all know you and Betty have a history. I’m not making _that_ up. In fact, I’m probably leaving a lot of stuff out. Care to comment on that?”

Veronica’s brow darkens. She looks across the crowd, eyes searching for the blond ponytail of her old friend. Betty is standing by the lobster buffet, looking painfully ashamed. She’s never had a good poker face.

“Archie, is this true? Just – just tell me what happened.”

“Ronnie, of course not! Are you gonna believe a guy who smells like a distillery, who didn’t even bother to put decent clothes on?”

Jughead smiles coolly. “Funny you should be so particular about my clothes. You had no problem taking off Betty’s dress earlier.”

The guests gasp.

It all happens really slow from his vantage point.

Archie lunges for him and Jughead’s head hits the ground.

The last thing he sees is Veronica getting up from her chair, gathering the hem of her dress in her fist. Those dark eyes look troubled. They look right at him.

And he knows that, in that brief moment, she believes him.

And then it’s back to square one.

(He tries it three more times before he gives up.

In all of them, he sounds like an unhinged maniac. In all of them, he’s certain Veronica believes him, but it doesn’t make a lick of difference. In one of them, Archie throws him across the table and he’s launched straight at Veronica, because she was trying to get between them. He rolls on the floor with her. Her rose crown stabs him in the cheek.

Those tiny little thorns.

“Ow.”

When he looks down at her, she’s staring up at him with a mouth full of blood. She’s lost a tooth.

“Is it bad?” she asks him, opening her mouth.

And maybe it’s gross and weird but he’d like to kiss her mouth full of blood.

“No. You look great,” he says, happy that she asked him. He’s dragged off of her and into the oblivion of another day.)

He wakes up and goes to the wedding and watches her walk down the aisle, blissfully ignorant and in love. Then he goes to the reception and watches her drink champagne and eat cake and act more in love. It's not exactly fun. 

But the analgesic boredom of timelessness has shaken off him. Now, every day feels consequential because he gets to watch her and find out more about her. It’s something new.

He makes a late appearance at breakfast. She’s got the silver clips in her hair and she’s pouring herself orange juice. She’s got a slice of toast between her teeth. She turns around to greet the newcomer, but she almost spills the glass on herself. Jughead steps forward and steadies her hand just in time. He releases her wrist, fingers sliding down her arm. 

“Wedding jitters, huh?” he asks. “Gotta be more careful.”

Veronica removes the toast from her mouth. “Oh no, it’s the glass’ fault.”

He snorts. “How is it the glass’ fault?”

She lifts it up. “See here? It’s slightly cracked, which messes with its center of gravity.”

He doesn’t see any cracks. He just sees her face through the glass, half of it clear, half of it orange. She looks like an exotic fish, which he accidentally says out loud.

“Why, thank you. I’m going for a barracuda look.”

He snorts again.

Veronica lowers the glass. “I’m the bride.”

“I know. I’m Jughead.”

“Come again? You’re a jug?”

“Ha ha. No, that’s my name.”

“That’s not a real name.”

“Well, I can’t tell you my _real_ name.”

Veronica’s eyes glimmer with interest. “Why not? And please don’t say you’d have to kill me.”

“Nah, I’m really lousy at killing people.”

She smiles, wry and puckish. “Not for lack of trying, I imagine.”

It’s dizzying, trying to keep up with her. He realizes he hasn’t taken a step back. His hand still hovers in the vicinity of her wrist. He likes being dizzy. He likes it a lot.

“So, come on. Tell me your real name. Or I guess I can find out when I check the guest list. You _are_ on the guest list, aren’t you?”

He smiles, shakes his head. “Nope. I’m just a traveler from the east. Saw you guys have quite a spread her, decided to check it out.”

“Wedding crasher, huh? Do you do this a lot?”

“Well, when I happen to be out of jail.”

She laughs. “God, I really hope this is your idea of persiflage and you don’t actually mean it.”

He cocks his head. “Persiflage? Is that a brand of detergent?”

She sidesteps him, brushing her shoulder against his as she sets down her glass.

“You know what it means. I can tell. You’re a cultured hobo.”

Jughead catches the flimsy hem of her dressing gown with his finger. “Yeah, sometimes I get a couple of answers right on _Jeopardy_.”

She smiles over her shoulder. “They play that a lot in jail?”

He wants to bottle that look in her dark eye, that look of mischief and fondness. The way she _is_ in the world.

“You have no idea.”

“See you at the ceremony,” she murmurs, suddenly demure, suddenly aware that she’s enjoying herself too much with a strange man.

He releases the hem of her dressing gown.

A few hours later, she’s standing in front of her husband-to-be and the gulls cry out in the distance. The sea is miles away, yet the air is fragrant with a distant, salty shore. It feels foreign somehow, too delicate and eerie. She’s happy in this moment, _so_ happy, and yet she misses the city. She misses the cold. She misses a part of her that isn’t here.

She casts a glance at her parents, putting on a show, acting the happy couple for her benefit. Behind her parents, a few seats down, the hobo holds a sign above his head.

_MY REAL NAME IS FORSYTHE PENDLETON JONES THE THIRD._

She cracks.

It starts with a giggle in the back of her throat. Then it graduates to full-blown laughter, the kind you can’t hold back. She laughs out loud. Really loud.

The reverend clears his throat. Archie is smiling in confusion. The guests are staring at her. Her father frowns.

Veronica tries to stop. She puts a hand over her mouth.

The hobo lowers the sign.

 _Told ya_ , he mouths and winks at her.

She wants to wink back.

Instead, she schools her features into something close to bridal bliss and she turns her attention to the reverend and her husband-to-be. Laughing time is over.

It starts to feel wrong. Not just because she’s being lied to by her husband, but because she shouldn’t even _be_ with Archie at all.

She should be with him.

It’s stupid and archaic, this caveman kind of thinking, this “you belong to me” kind of bullshit. But it really does feel like the universe presented him his favorite meal on a silver platter and then told him he could never eat from it.

Granted, she’d probably feel insulted to be compared to a meal, and for some reason he can’t think of another metaphor because he’s always been a food-oriented person, but the universe’s cruelty still stands.

It’s almost like the time loop is fucking with him. It wasn’t enough to be stuck in time, now he has to be stuck while _pining_.

He gets to watch a girl he really, really fucking likes get married, over and over again.

Weirdly, he feels he understands Betty better now. He usually starts the day in their room, watching Betty get ready for the festivities. He stares at her reflection in the mirror. He wants to tell her, _I get it now, I get why you’ll never be over Archie. He’s that piece for you. The rest of the puzzle doesn’t matter._

One morning, he tells her.

Betty turns to him, eyes already wet. “What are you talking about?”

He shrugs, helpless. He feels more alone than ever. “I’m only saying I understand.”

So, finally, he hurts her.

He doesn’t want to. But he does, inevitably.

He makes sure to introduce himself at breakfast. Every time he does it, it’s never the same. Veronica always says something new and clever. Even when she follows the same beats, she surprises him. He could live on that forever.

But he doesn’t want to. He needs more. He’s greedy like that. 

After he’s established their banter-fueled familiarity, he decides to take it a step further. He finds a moment when she’s by herself at the bar, talking to an old aunt, and he sidles up to her and whispers in her ear, “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Veronica is almost spooked by his intrusion.

“I don’t think it’s wise to follow a rambler like you out into the wilderness.”

“It’s _definitely_ not wise, but you deserve to know the truth.”

That piques her interest.

So, she follows him.

He doesn’t dare take her hand in his.

He leads her to the back of the house. He finds the right window without even looking.

He tells her to crouch.

Veronica is smiling nervously, as if this were one last adventure she might undertake with a stranger.

“I’m sorry for what you’re about to see,” he tells her, mock-serious. At least, she _thinks_ it’s mock-serious.

She peeks over the window ledge.

Archie’s fingers are a darker shade of white on the milky white thighs. 

Jughead can see it, the moment the film breaks. Her eyes go glassy, then metal-cold.

She stumbles back quietly.

Not making a sound.

Her white dress merges with the sharp yucca leaves, green and white and dark.

Jughead goes after her.

“Hey, wait –”

Veronica whirls on him.

“Why would you show me that?” she asks coldly.

“I-I wanted you to know. It wasn’t fair to you what they were doing –”

“I didn’t want to find out like that! Like it’s some sort of sick joke!”

Jughead’s shoulders fall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you -”

“Really? You must think I’m so stupid. You must find it all so funny,” she says, brittle and broken.

“No, I don’t. I hate that it hurts you. I hate them for doing it, and I hate myself too. I care about you more than anyone here. Veronica, I love –”

She flinches. “Jesus, _don’t_. Don’t you dare say that. You hardly know me.”

“That’s not true.” _I’ve always known you_ , he almost wants to say.

“Did you know about … _them_ this morning? When you were flirting with me?”

“I –”

“Did you _know_?”

He lowers his head.

Her eyes are darker than the dark around her. She walks away without a sound.

She’s talking to an old aunt at the bar.

He saunters into her personal space. He wants to appear confident, even though he’s sweating through his T-shirt.

“Come with me, I want to show you something.”

Veronica throws him a curious glance.

“Don’t tell me you’re going to practice those average killing skills on me.”

“Can you not spoil the surprise?”

And he knows this isn’t proof of something, but she still follows him. She’s perennially curious about him. It’s like the universe is throwing him a bone.

This time, he takes her to the rocks outside the wedding resort. It takes a bit of walking, but he knows a detour.

“Okay, I am _genuinely_ worried now.”

“You should be. There are a lot of snakes in this area.”

“Jughead.”

“Relax, I have the antidote on me.”

She laughs. “Please don’t tell me you’ve brought me out here to show me the night sky and all the _stars_ , because I can see them just fine from my window. That’s the point of an outdoor resort.”

“Stars are nice and all, but I actually wanted to show you the dinosaurs.” He points to the horizon. “Watch.”

Veronica opens her mouth to ask him if he’s on crystal meth. And then she sees them. Right on schedule. Their undulating humps, their tall, dauntingly giant figures, etched on the night sky. Old travelers, neither animal nor human. Creatures that no human eye has ever seen. An unbroken chain of impossible beings.

“I think they’re brontosauruses,” he says quietly.

“How –”

“I don’t know. I have no idea. But they’re here every night.”

“Every night?”

“I guess – I guess only tonight.”

“I don’t understand,” she says, staring at their fading shapes.

“Me neither. But I thought we could not understand together.”

Veronica finally looks at him.

Everything about this feels unreal. It must be. She licks her lips. “I shouldn’t be here.”

And maybe she means a number of things. Maybe she means she shouldn’t be here, marrying someone else.

He looks at her, trying to memorize that awe-struck look in her eye.

“No, you shouldn’t.”

He leans over and kisses her on the cheek, close to the mouth.

He’s the one who walks away this time.

She likes dancing.

He knew that about her in the abstract, because he constantly saw her on the dance floor, even though he never absorbed her presence.

Now, he sits in a chair all night and watches her dance.

He’s never been a dancer, never even ironically. He’s too terrified of free movement. The loop should have lowered his inhibitions, but this one remains.

The trouble is, Archie isn’t much of a dancer either, even if he tries.

And there’s a particular number she’s prepared for the two of them. He never caught it before; he never caught the fact that it was supposed to be special. Their wedding dance.

It’s not a romantic slow dance. It’s an eclectic jazz number, but the movements are weird, playful and stilted at the same time, a kind of friendly, self-aware playground dance. Archie and Veronica are supposed to coordinate. They’re supposed to tap their legs on the spot while snapping their fingers, then they’re supposed to take three steps to the right and clap their hands, three steps to the left and clap their hands, three steps to the front, swinging their hips and snapping their fingers, a small jump as they stand sideways, then three steps to the right, clap their hands, three steps to the left, clap their hands…like waltzing without holding hands. Without touching at all.

Archie is not very good; he keeps missing the beat or bumping into her, messing up their steps. She laughs good-humoredly but he doesn’t look so amused. It’s torturous to watch. Eventually, he breaks the sequence altogether and grabs her waist and pulls her into a slow dance. The DJ switches to a Mariah Carey song. Veronica demurs with a small smile.

Jughead must’ve stared at this a million times without recognizing it.

How could he have been so proverbially blind?

He pulls up the movie on his laptop.

It’s his favorite Godard.

 _Bande_ _à_ _Part_. Band of Outsiders.

A strange comedy about a bunch of hoodlum misfits who never feel real, who go through outlandish yet very quotidian adventures without losing any bit of their illogical singularity. In one scene, they’re dancing in a cafe without any music. Only they can hear the music.

Of course, he realizes. She wanted her and Archie to have this singularity. This is what romance means to her.

And he hates how much he fucking loves this snobby bullshit.

He hates how precisely she imagined his world for him.

He already knows the dance; he just has to practice the right kind of rhythm and attitude. It’s not hard, especially if you like Godard and his brand of innocent, merry-go-round, darkly intellectual humor. The dance, he realizes with chagrin, is a kind of absurdist loop, because that’s most dances and most _lives_ , so you might as well enjoy them.

So, for once, he enjoys the loop.

He walks on the dance floor in a suit and tie. He carries with him a men’s felt hat, but it’s not for him.

He stops in front of Veronica before the jazz number starts.

“You’re missing this,” he says, giving her the hat. “Like Anna Karina in the movie.”

Veronica picks it up gingerly. She doesn’t know how to respond, a rare instance for her. She’s so shocked that she doesn’t really mind when Jughead says “May I?” to Archie.

“I promise I’ll give her back at the end,” he adds. Archie is equally confused, though almost relieved to be excused. He steps aside.

Jughead gets in position next to her.

Veronica glances at him. She takes off her flower crown and lets it fall on the ground. She puts on the hat. There is an almost pre-ordained, ritualistic quality to her movements.

As if she already knew, must have known.

The dance starts.

They snap their fingers together.

It’s smooth and beautiful. They dance together without touching, but always perfectly in each other’s orbit. He slides, she slides. He jumps, she jumps. They swing their hips playfully. He doesn’t care what it looks like. But he knows they must look pretty good, judging from the star-struck faces of the guests.

They’re so in sync that they even breathe the same. It’s eerie and funny and almost like what time feels like while you’re living it, the delightful absurdity of being alive.

At the end, they stop in front of each other, out of breath.

Veronica takes off the hat.

“You can keep it,” he says.

“Do I know you?” she asks, staring at him with those curious dark eyes. There’s something giddy there, something joyful. She _hopes_ that she knows him. She hopes he says yes.

“No, you don’t. Have a wonderful night, Veronica.”

He touches her arm briefly and then loses himself in the crowd.

She tries to find him for the rest of the night.

He’s been learning how to make pipe bombs. That sounds vaguely sinister, but he’s not planning on blowing up the wedding.

No, not even himself, because it wouldn’t work. He’d just come back.

But if he could detonate it the moment he gets sucked into the cave’s lava core, it might break the loop. You see, the cave is the source of his problems. He stumbled upon it the night of the wedding, distraught from seeing Betty and Archie, but mostly wanting to get drunk by himself. What he found inside it was a glowing, burning center; a golden black hole of destruction.

If he’s learned anything from this cursed experience it’s that there are inexplicable and unavoidable backdoors to life. There’s strange, terrifying magic around every corner.

Science is a kind of magic too. Quantum physics is particularly nutty.

So, after reading up on it and understanding almost nothing at all, he’s decided he’ll launch himself into that core once more and blow it up. There’s a chance he might break the loop. There’s also a chance he might not return and die for good. But becoming nothing is not so bad, after all. He got to meet her. He got to love her on his own terms. He got to show her the dinosaurs. He got to dance with her. That’s good enough.

Still, on that final day, he indulges. He talks to her at breakfast, flirts and charms her, makes her smile during the wedding vows, then finds her at the bar, talking to an old aunt. He waits for her to finish.

“Well, well, you put on actual clothes for the occasion,” she drawls, looking at his suit and tie.

“Yeah, I figured I would go out in style.”

“What do you mean?”

_I want to tell you that I’m leaving and I might not be coming back. You might not see me again after this. I wanted to say goodbye._

This is what he means to say, but something else comes out.

“I wish you could come with me. I wish we could elope.”

She laughs. “Aww, that’s sweet –”

He holds up his hand. “I’m not being cute. This isn’t a joke, though I know it sounds like it. I wish we could elope. It’s childish, but I still wish it. I wish I could take you back to a cold place, far away from this weather and this desert. I wish we could huddle under the blankets together. I wish I could warm your feet. I wish we could share microwave pizza. I wish we could get bored together. I wish we could experience magic and mundaneness without becoming indifferent to them. I wish I could get to know you like I already do, then resent you for every small thing, then fall in love with you all over again because I love it even when I don’t like you. I wish you felt the same way, even the not liking me part, just a little bit. And I wish I’d said all of this in one long, eloquent sentence, but I only have these really stupid wishes, with the gaps in between.”

Veronica stares at him for what feels like an eternity.

“I don’t know,” she says, voice a little hoarse, “I think that was pretty eloquent, all things considered.”

He smiles and drinks in her face and the darkness in her eyes. It will all be dark soon.

“Goodbye, Veronica.”

“Goodbye, Jughead,” she says, looking at him as if he were a stranger, but a stranger she’d like to maybe share microwave pizza with. 

That’s good enough.

He stands before the glowing core, the warmth of it burning his cheeks, already singeing his eyebrows.

He’s as ready as he’ll ever be. He takes one step forward, finger hovering over the detonation button.

“Wait! Jughead, wait!”

A flash of white.

The bride rushes in after him, her gown speckled with sand and dirt. She’s still wearing her flower crown. She looks like a maiden sacrificing herself to a fertility god.

Jughead almost stumbles into the pit of fire.

“What are you doing –?”

He doesn’t get to finish the question.

Veronica reaches out and takes his hand. She pulls him towards her, but it’s too late. He wraps his hand around her waist almost instinctively. They are dragged down together.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

She’s not supposed to be here.

Their mouths collide and he pushes the button.

“Why did you come after me?”

“As if I could just go back to my wedding after your little speech?”

“It wasn’t _that_ good.”

Veronica throws a fry at him, but he catches it with his mouth.

She rolls her eyes ruefully. “Okay, I was also worried you were about to kill yourself. I wasn’t half wrong.”

“It was the only thing I could think of to break the loop. I’m sorry I dragged you into it. I shouldn’t have confessed my feelings like that. If the bomb thing hadn’t worked, we’d both be dead right now.”

Veronica leans back in her seat, exhausted. “But it did work.”

“It was a 50/50 chance.”

“I guess the odds were in our favor.”

Jughead looks at her in her dirty wedding dress, the flower crown still rooted to her proud head, thorns and all.

“Yeah, the odds were in our favor.” He smiles and peers down. “Of course, next time, we might not be so lucky.”

Veronica makes a face. “Can you please not jinx it? I don’t want to think about a future time loop. I’m still trying to adjust to the fact that you were stuck in one.”

“Huh. I guess I wouldn’t mind a second loop as long as I got stuck in it with you.”

She gives him an arch look. “That’s marriage in a nutshell.”

“Since when are you such a cynic?”

“Since having survived a break in the time-space continuum.”

“Yeah, that would do it.”

They clinch milkshake glasses.

Veronica looks out the window at the distant sunset. It’s good to see the end of a new day. 

“Say…among those many wishes of yours, was there one about having sex in your run down car?”

“My car looks way worse than that. This is a rental.”

“You do know how to set the mood,” she hums, a rose petal falling down her bare shoulder.

Jughead wants to say, _I want to be that rose petal on your shoulder_ , but that sounds really dumb and lame so he says, “Veronica, I really wish we could have sex in that rental.”

She smiles. “Some wishes do come true.”

They both rise from the booth. Jughead holds out his hand for her to take.

“Oh, but in the future?” she drawls. “We’re _not_ eating microwave pizza.”

He laughs, catching her hand in his. “Yeah, I figured.”

**Author's Note:**

> here's a clip of that famous dancing scene from Bande a Part https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1q9G2YmVqI  
> i also really like the Nouvelle Vague edit of this scene to their song "dance with me", which also inspired the fic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqdYqIYNiZM  
> happy holidays!


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